


The Grey Desert Mythos

by sybilius



Series: Talking won't save you [9]
Category: Il buono il brutto il cattivo | The Good The Bad and The Ugly (1966), The Blair Witch Project (1999)
Genre: Aging Themes, Anal Sex, Angel Eyes bullshit, Blair Witch References, But you know the beautiful kind? I mean hopefully you see what I'm trying to do here, Camping, Character Development, Deliberate spelling errors, Discussion of Cannibalism, Egregious references to previous fics, Elements of indigenous storytelling, Emotional Hurt, Epistolary, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, Fluff, Found Footage, Gwitchin Character(s), Hallucinations, Horror, Hunting, I mean that's part of the fun right, I write for myself lolololo, It's fluff for them, M/M, Memories, Murder, Mythology - Freeform, Northern aesthetic, Old Age, Oral Sex, Some use of Inuit artifacts, Storytelling, Survival, Tragedy, Unreliable Narrator, Writing, character as writer, or are they?, reminscing, seriously fluff for them what HAS fifteen years done to these assholes, stories, the trend of "everything I write should be tagged with weird style" continues, weird style, well. in a sense.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-06 01:15:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14631011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sybilius/pseuds/sybilius
Summary: Two hunters chased the legend of a shaman across a snow-covered desert.They were never found.This is the story they left behind.





	1. Be at hand, if there is anything more for me to do

**Author's Note:**

> I keep promising myself I will stop writing these, then I keep getting all these pesky _ideas_...
> 
> So welcome. In a long long history of self indulgent fics I have written, this is probably the most self indulgent. That said, I definitely feel like I am learning something from writing this...
> 
> So without further ado, here is a fic about a very unlikely ship, all headcanon stories from my past stories in place, epistolary style, and in a genre VERY tonally different from the canon material. You know what you're in for. 
> 
> Let it never be said I didn't eventually write these fuckers the ending they deserve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Latin, Gwitch'in translation to follow.

**Cas--**

**Please let me know when you read this. I'm going up to the dinjii dazhan head. Find me there.**

**I'm sorry.**

 

**\--Sue**

*****

_ Yehdaa in the sky today   _

_ Hunt, one kariboo today. Got this as a gift. From Angel.  _

_ Been able to write dosn't mean I know what to write. _

_ Angel’s been writing a lot since I got that cold. About the west. _

_ He’s been remembering things a lot, or not. Fifteen years since we came up, which doesn't seem like as long as it should. _

_ Things go on. _

_ * _

_ Day 1 of Yehdaa Rising _

_ 3 Porcupines and 6 hares today. Not bad. _

_ Angel read one of his stories today. There good. Just like the books, and I can remember everything about the places when he describes them-- the deserts and the way they never seemed to end. The dust in the towns and the way they were all the same. _

_ I thouhgt it would be worse to remember it, but way he tells it -- its his story. So its not so bad to hear. He hasnt written anything about Carson yet, but he knew of me long before. _

_ I could say the same about him, but he said that wasnt surprising. Sonofabitch. _

_ Asked him if he had anythin about Tweechik yet. Said he hadnt gotten that far. _

_ He looks like he wants to know what I write in this. But he probably knows I havnt got much here. Not much to say other than things are as good as they can be. _

_ I told him I’ve been writing about what’s going on now. Close enough. _

*

 

\-- The Hunters and the Shaman -- 

 

‘Adeste, si quid mihi restat agendum!’

\-- Chapter 1. --

They came in to Tweechik in the late turn of summer. All too soon time would turn over from endless day to endless night. They were armed with hunter’s weapons, some bows carved by blade, only one carried a gun that spanned the length of his back. They spoke to the matriarch of the town, the huntress whose sharp gaze kept everyone alive.

Fear was written in their every move.

Sharpening his knife, the carver watched the men gesture wildly to Sue in their foreign tongue. Angel Eyes drew the stone over his blade, once. He did not know what these men wanted, but they were unsettling Sue, which did not bode well for their presence in Tweechik. Fifteen years had taught him that Sue could more than fend for herself, but he kept a sharp eye on them.

They weren't leaving anytime quick.

Angel Eyes put down the rabbit’s corpse, the blood crusted thick on his carver's gloves. At his slow approach in the snow, the strangers looked up, their faces a mask of fear and confusion. In another life, Angel Eyes had been used to such expressions. Even now, he enjoyed a small thrill of the former power he used to wield, a reminder. He approached without words, the familiarity of language would only serve to put them at ease.

“Angel Eyes,” Sue warned.

He said nothing, simply raised his eyebrows at the wide eyes of the strangers. He stepped around them to look over Sue’s shoulder. She held a small, bone-carved talisman, a hooked shape with a shard stabbed through the middle. Her lips tightened.

“What's this?”

Sue glanced back and forth, sighed audibly. She knew, presumably, that there was no point keeping secrets.

“They came to warn us. In the  _ sheih _ , the snow-desert. They say there's an evil shaman,” her face twisted on the last word.

“Mm,” Angel Eyes took the carving when she offered it, shucking off his glove to scratch a nail through the bone. It wasn’t any kind of animal he’s worked with, or at the very least, it had been treated strangely, “This superstition or--”

“There have been deaths.”

“Three--” one of the men mumbled, “Young. Makes seven since.”

“A murderer, then. Mm,” he passed the bone back to Sue's outstretched hand. She didn't look as annoyed as she could have been. He could almost detect something unsettled in her gaze.

“More or less,” she frowned, and one of the men added something in that language Angel Eyes didn't know. He kept his composure, frustrating as it was to not know what the man was saying. Unfortunately, learning the tongue from Sue had never been an option.

“What makes you think it's the same? Damn--” she switched back to her native tongue, the words clumsy and slow on her lips. The man argued again, which Sue responded angrily to before turning to Angel Eyes with a grimace.

“Look, can we--”

Angel Eyes stepped away with a brief jerk to his head. There was more to be learned from some of the longer standing residents of Tweechik. The air was damp with the threat of snow, the ground already coated a foot thick with the coming of the fall. The days were losing their hours quickly.

He glanced back over his shoulder before taking the hare to Lars, the wizened old carver who ran the smoke-fires. The man had been here since Sue’s will and Castellan’s skill forced Tweechik into existence, the one post of humanity between here and Fort Yukon. Angel Eyes had followed the legend and came long after Lars, leaving his own legend behind.

Lars tended to be a man of few words, and Angel Eyes respected that about him. But this time, he suspected there was something to know.

“These men coming up,” he inclined his head slyly towards the group just before they disappeared into the inn, “Asking questions.”

“Wanting trouble?”

“Not sure,” Angel Eyes was sure they brought fear and superstitious nonsense, and nothing else. But he was curious, “Sue said they got talking about a Shaman.”

“The Grey Shaman. Damnation,” cursing in itself was unusual for him, which made Angel Eyes realize he had asked the right man, “Not again. That’s out of our grounds, at least. At least I hope.”

“The Grey Shaman?”

“Ah, that would have been before your time. Before we even called this place home. Bad time, it was a bad time. I was up in Fort Yukon, the Gwitch’in all in a ruckus. Children going missing, strange goings on. So they sent up a group of their best hunters, to find out who was out there. Three of ‘em on the edge of that tiny desert.”

“A desert?” that had his full attention. That space between his old mythos and his new life somehow had collided in the form of an unlikely northern desert. Where a murderer was to be found. Fate often presented him with such opportunities.

“They said-- the man that found em, said they found em tied ‘em to a pine in the center of some ugly rocks, some strange symbols carved on their foreheads. Owl eyes. Craziest thing about it was, when the man dragged a few others from the fort to where they were supposed to be -- nothing. Didn’t know if Paul had gone crazy or nothin’. He never was the same after that, though. And they never found those men.”

Angel Eyes contemplated the picture Lars painted, one both grotesque and compelling. The killer certainly had a desire for the dramatic-- not so dissimilar to a few tableau Angel Eyes had constructed in his youth. He could respect that.

“So. People believe they were killed by the so-called Shaman? How long ago was this?”

“Gotta be comin’ on 30 years now,” he scratched his head, “Come to think of it. I don’t know what to think of it. Believed it then, but nothin’ made sense. Well. Let’s hope it’s still nothing now. That the last one?”

“For now,” Angel Eyes knew Blondie and Peter would return with more small game before the day’s end. But for now he could collect more information, and he knew who to seek company from next.

It took no more than ten minutes to cross the entire length of the town. A lone new cabin had joined the ranks since he had arrived here, but for the most part, no one stayed long. Few even had the guts to try to make it. But living on the knife edge of survival was what had kept life interesting here for all those years.

And here, Angel Eyes was just starting to think there wasn’t much that could interest him, that the snow leaving its streaks of white in his hair was numbing him to all there was to create and destroy in this strange wasteland.

Hopefully this story would prove to be an exception.

The house with the antlers above the door, though. At the very least there was always a study to be made of blood there, if in the service of life rather than death. He crossed the threshold without knocking, the cadence of his footsteps already obvious to those he would find here.

“Castellan.”

The town’s physician, pale faced, scars on her upper arm left exposed and livid red next to the tight binding on her bicep. Most of her glasswork was away for the moment, replaced with small metal implements that had versatile purpose for wood, metal, and flesh alike. Castellan was creative in her craft, and had saved many lives even just in the time Angel Eyes had known her.

“Angel Eyes. Something you need?” she tapped a dial on the pressurization device she was developing.

“You know anything about the Grey Shaman? Out there in some kind of desert?”

She ceased her experiment, frowning at him as she released the bindings on her arm, “Some. Sue told me about the parts she thought would interest me. The shaman was said to be one who would heal as well as one who would kill.”

“That’s an interesting superstition.”

“It sounded profoundly illogical. Sick children, even one born without a hand, Sue said. They’d leave them at the center of the desert, holding an offering in the summer for a night, wrapped in nothing but a blanket. It sounded cruel,” her voice was detached, unmoved. Castellan understood cruelty only objectively, try as she might to develop the sensibility for understanding those boundaries.

Angel Eyes had never bothered to put in that effort.

“When they’d return to fetch the three children, they were healed-- even the one missing the hand they said grew it anew. Sue asked because she wanted to know if it was possible.”

“Did she  _ see _ this happen?”

“She was young. She said she wasn't confident. But it's certainly beyond anything I believe is possible.”

“Naturally,” Angel Eyes came to her side when she motioned him over, shrugged off his coat for her to try the apparatus on him, “What of the children that were healed?”

“Legend has it they wandered back to the desert some five years later as if possessed. Any attempts to find them were met with more disappearances. But the matter was settled when they caught an exiled tribesman stockpiling bones. Some of which were human. They had him killed, and I believe the matter was considered settled.”

“Sounds like our murderer,” Angel Eyes quipped, referring to the hunter who had terrorized Tweechik when he and Blondie had arrived.

“Before his time. You did say you thought his work lacked creativity,” she looped the device tight around his arm, pursing her lips.

“I like the bones,” Angel Eyes said mildly. Castellan inclined her head. She’d been to his house many a time, or formerly the house of the hunter-turned murderer. One was enough for the town, he supposed.

“So not the same men who came to Sue today, then.”

“Who?”

“Men from the Gwitchin, I presume,” she picked out one of her screwdrivers, using it to tighten some delicate part of the apparatus. Angel Eyes was reminded of a pocket watch.

“Mm. That’s quite unusual for them to come here.”

Angel Eyes had the intuition this was because of Sue, but the good sense that asking about that wasn't likely to teach him anything about this shaman. “They said there were murders in this desert, recently. Claimed it was the shaman.”

“Serious enough to warn her off,” Castellan tightened the device on his arm. He could feel the blood throbbing its rhythm when she checked the dial.

“Or too afraid of an old wives tale to do anything about it.”

“It's no business of ours.”

“I'm planning to make it mine. Does she have a map of the place?”

“Sue? She’s never wanted to go close to the desert. The hunting isn’t consistent there, though it’s only a half day’s journey.”

“That doesn't answer my question,” Angel Eyes was precise about what he wanted from her, and Castellan knew that well.

“I don't know.”

“I’ll ask Sue,” he had known her long enough to know when she was trading in half-truths. She released his arm from the bindings, putting away her equipment in silence. He waited her out.

“You shouldn’t,” was all she finally said.

“You’re right. She'll tell me. Just tell her Blondie and I will seek him out.”

“Who?”

Angel Eyes cocked his head with a smile, “The so-called Shaman.”

*

_ Day 2 of Yehdaa Rising _

_ So Angel wants us to go on some kind of hunting trip. But not the usual kind of hunting, hunting down a murderer. _

_ Supose its been long enougf. _

_ Sue would probably say I get myself into situasions like this, thinking that way. Heh. He's making plans about it, and more wrigting. We have both gotten into that. _

_ I think he’s scared. Not in the way he thinks but-- things have been on the same way for a while and we’re both getting older. _

_ We could both keep on with this but I know it's not in his nature. Thoght it wasnt in mine neither. _

_ Its good but-- I sure didn’t expect it to be like this-- to live this long. Funny to think that he didn’t either. Well. Here’s to another fifteen, maybe. Starting with this. _

*

\-- The Hunters and the Shaman -- 

“Accensa domo proximi, tua quoque periclitatur”

 

\-- Chapter 2. --

In the last decade or so, Angel Eyes had spent more time than he cared to admit reading and writing on the fur-covered approximation of a sofa. First, it was catching up with Castellan’s medical texts, then he moved on to the other books she had, occasionally requesting something to be brought in from the general store. The writing came on gradually at first, after reading a cheap penny dreadful that was clearly written by someone who had never slit a throat in their miserable life.

He surveyed the bookshelf with at least five filled books now, took a thoughtful sip of a cup of stewed moss. One of the hallmarks of getting used to the North was drinking a swill meant to ward off scurvy. By then Angel Eyes had long since learned to cope with it's bitterness.

A journey of more than a day meant packing in at least some smoked meat and pemmican. The smell of dried flesh pricked at old senses as Blondie shifted about next to the stove, laying out what they would need.

Angel Eyes realized it had been three years since he and Blondie had left their cabin for more than overnight. They used to travel to the mountains edge every so often, find the edges where one clever with a rope and a pick could find a way up. Survey the plains as the gods might. These were hardly stories worth telling, but there was certainly a satisfaction in them.

Yes, it had been a long time since Angel Eyes had made a story worth telling. There was a greater satisfaction in coming back to that practice, stretching those old muscles.  

“You reckon a night is going to be long enough to find him?”

Blondie was amenable as ever to the journey, much like when they had first travelled north. He was examining the chest in the house, which contained an array of equipment for making camp that they hadn't used in years.

“Maybe not. We can pack for a few days,” Angel Eyes took a sip of the cup, added a few more of Castellan's statements to the narrative.

“You finished with that?”

“I’ll come back to it,” Angel Eyes stood to assess what Blondie had added to their packs so far, “With luck, this one will be worth recording. It's a start.”

Blondie’s lips twitch, “So, a desert, huh?”

“Like old times.”

“Not quite,” Blondie smirked, “I couldn’t force myself to want to kill you if I tried,”

“Could make you change your mind,” Angel Eyes locked his gaze to Blondie’s, waiting for an opening. He feinted a punch but Blondie didn't fall for it, caught the uppercut.

“Don't doubt that you could, but doubt that you would,” Blondie grinned, tugging open Angel Eyes collar with his free hand and digging his nails in just above the scar on his chest. The scar he had given Angel Eyes.

“You remember what that was like? In the West, I mean.”

“Course, let me get out your Remington to remind you,” Blondie cut him off with a crushing kiss, demanding in a way that Angel Eyes used to have to coax out of him. Over the years he'd become far, far better at taking what he wanted, which just made the both of them more hungry for it. Angel Eyes bit down, and Blondie hissed with pleasure.

“You know I never saw that coming, back then.”

“You wouldn’t have till you were hit in the head with it,” Angel Eyes bit at his neck while Blondie got his hands on the scar, dragging them gently. Angel Eyes liked his memoirs to be physical, concrete. There was a story for every scar on his body.

A knock at the door startled them both apart.

“Sue,” Angel Eyes smirked and buttoned up his shirt.

Blondie opened the door, and sure enough, there she was, mouth in a thin frown. He stepped aside to let her in, spooned her a cup of the moss drink without needing to ask. She took it with a nod, glancing over to Angel Eyes before taking a seat at their worn table.

Angel Eyes sat down opposite her, “Castellan tell you I was looking for you?”

“She said you wanted to go out to the desert.”

“If there’s a murderer out there-- should take care of that,”

Sue’s frown deepened,“Did you ever consider that there might be things outside of what you can do?”

“Not once,” Angel Eyes’ grin was that of a hungry ghost, “Do you believe in the fairy-stories, Sue?”

“No-- but I don’t know that we should dismiss stories, either,” she stacked the dirty bowls on the table and laid out a worn piece of parchment, some of it marked with symbology Angel Eyes had only seen before on a few of Blondie’s hunting maps.

“But you did bring us the map.”

“Fifteen years, and I know it’s pointless to argue with you,” her gaze flickered to Blondie, “And you’re going with him, I assume?”

“Someone has to.”

Angel Eyes bristled, “I don’t need company. I could do it for twenty-some years before you, depending on when you count the start of it.”

“What, you want to die alone?” Blondie teased, then paused to himself as if remembering something. Angel Eyes considered the words carefully.

“Only if it's an interesting way to go.”

“Both of you, stay safe. Just because we’ve trained Jordan to hunt as well, doesn’t mean it won’t be difficult if we lose either of you doing something stupid. Now. Too tlan trih isn’t that big, but some of what were believed to be the best trackers have been lost there. There are very few landmarks-- here are a few on the map.”

The map was sparsely annotated, difficult to get a sense of scale on. A few patches of trees marked, some of the ink seemingly smeared and its landmarks moved elsewhere. But there were stretches of land where they had dealt with worse, coming up north. Between Blondie’s eye for the stars and a well-worn compass, they’d always found their way.

“That where they found the dead men?” he pointed to an ugly mark near the southern edge.

“Who told you about that?”

“I’m sure you can guess.”

“I never told Castellan that story.”

“Lars knew about it,” Angel Eyes relented, mainly because he wanted her to continue with the map.

“Hm. Right,” Sue pointed to a circular symbol close to the center, “There should be graves here. Spirit houses, Gwitchin graves. By day the tribe went to remember the lost children. From what I heard, none were willing to stay past the falling of the light, then.”

“Have you ever been?” Angel Eyes cast her a challenging glance.

“No reason to.”

“But you wouldn’t, would you?” his lips curled to a smirk.

“Angel,” Blondie said warningly, but Sue put up a hand, shaking her head.

“Let me ask you this. Why do you want to do this?” Despite her fear, Sue always asked the right questions. The interesting ones, for better or worse. Angel Eyes leaned back in his chair.

“I’ve spent the better part of a lifetime doing what others don’t dare to,” he glanced slowly to Blondie, and then back to Sue.

“Why stop now?”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _dinjii dazhan_ \- Medicine man. A reference to a man-shaped monument when Angel Eyes and Blondie came in to Tweechik. 
> 
> _Yehdaa_ \- A man being shot in the back with an arrow, a Dene constellation.
> 
>  _Adeste, si quid mihi restat agendum!_ \- Be at hand, if there is anything more for me to do. The last words of Emperor Severus
> 
>  _Accensa domo proximi, tua quoque periclitatur_ \- When the house of your neighbor is in flames, your own is in danger
> 
> *
> 
> I suppose I could make explicit commentary on which typeface is who, but you know by now, right? XD anyways, yell at me in the comments for the obscurity of this, lord knows I deserve it.


	2. We do not fear the grave, but the idea of it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Explicit sex in this chapter. Latin/Gwitchin translations to follow. Note that the Gwitchin has been attempted to be phonetically spelled rather than the agreed-upon spelling. This seemed in character to me at least.

\-- The Hunters and the Shaman -- 

 

“Eheu fugaces labuntur anni.”

 

\-- Chapter 3. -- 

They set out at dawn on foot, with a promise to Sue to return within the following day, at latest meeting on the outskirts the day following. Tracking a murderer was not always a quick endeavor. But Tweechik could not spare their absence for more than a few days without beginning to feel the gnaw of lack. 

As fortune would have it, the path itself was short, or seemed as such even on foot and with packs. With the snow coating the ground for about a foot, the desert itself wasn't obvious. But the trees, more or less common there, began to thin out in a way that left clues.

Angel Eyes’ boots dropped heavily in the shallow snow. Both he and Blondie could move silently when the situation demanded it, but when travelling in small parties, it was best to avoid frightening other hunters-- human or otherwise. Angel Eyes caught sight of a few creatures moving between the trees. He wondered what kind of animals lived in a desert of ice. Sue had said it was a small space, at least from the outside. 

“Is that--?” Blondie's eyes tracked the trees behind them, pointing to distant hunters between the trees, “Gwitchin.”

Angel Eyes tugged the pack over his shoulders, “Figure they’ve seen us yet?”

“Better to let them know. Uu eh!” Blondie called sharply through the trees. A returning yell in the Gwitchin tongue, “Damnit. I think they said something about searching but I barely know any words.”

“Are you hunters?” Angel Eyes called back.

“Looking for our kin,” a yell cut through the trees, thick with the accent Sue had a trace of, “Meet?” 

Angel Eyes turned to Blondie and he nodded. The two groups tracked together over the thin few feet of snow. Angel Eyes recognized one among them from the group who came to Tweechik yesterday. 

“Hello, drin gwiinzh. My Gwitchin is not very good,” Blondie shifted into a steely gaze that was more of a fear response than most would realize. The man didn’t take a step back but he did tense up. 

“Guk agawandie. My name is Zhoh.” 

“Angel Eyes.”

“Blondie.” 

He shifted back and forth. The others did not offer their names but at least one had an intent look in his eyes. Zhoh spoke: “You are close to somewhere you should not go.” 

“We are going to the desert,” Angel Eyes stated with the appropriate air of command. The man shook his head. 

“I have been once. There is no finding-- in or out. You see Inuks-- stone guides that lead both wrong and right.” 

“Have you lost people in there? Are you looking for them?” Blondie pressed them, and the man furrowed his brow. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. One of the others, the oldest, asked what sounded like a question, and he responded tersely before turning back to Blondie. 

“If they're lost in there, they are lost to us all. It was over two days ago they have gone. The night shifts the landscape. Chuu chinitram sees it,” he gestures towards the older man, who inclines his head gravely. A wind whistles through their long hair. 

“What has he seen?” Angel Eyes stared intently at the man, scrutinizing the deeply carved lines in his face.

“When a child he-- three days, there. In desert. He. No one know why he came back. He was there-- then home,” Zhoh’s eyes flickered to the desert, and the older man said something else in Gwitchin. He seemed to have a lot to say. 

“He says the shaman carries horns of bone. That he saw...white shadow. That he speaks in tongues of many. That he will kill without a thought.” 

“We are familiar with those who kill and make themselves more than they are,” Angel Eyes moved a hand to the Remington beneath his jacket. 

“I know you. You protect. For Sue,” the words were clumsy on the man’s tongue, but his eyes held a flicker of cloying admiration, as well as a measure of skepticism

“We hunt. Of a kind,” Angel Eyes smiled wolfishly, “I'm sure the last man we killed would call it hunting.” 

“The desert is not a man.” 

Zhoh’s dark eyes glittered. He cast his gaze beyond the trees, to what must be the desert, then back to them. It occured to Angel Eyes that they were losing the light, trading in mystic’s words so close to their destination. But there was something in it that amused him. The story, perhaps. 

“We do not aim to kill the desert.” 

“I do not think you seek to kill a man, either. What you find out there. I wish you. Something of luck. Do not linger.”

Then just as efficiently, jerked his head to the others, resuming their search as if the meeting barely phased them. One of the men looked back and made a gesture Angel Eyes did not recognize. Perhaps some kind of Gwitchin sign of the cross. 

“Thanks. Um. Mahsi Choo,” Blondie nodded as they turned away with a wave. 

Angel Eyes drew a hard breath of the dry air before folding open Sue's map, glancing ahead of them. From this angle, he could just make out an isolated mass of rocks surrounded by a scraggly few trees. 

“You think that's --” he gestured at the ugly mark on the map. Blondie grunted his agreement. As they came closer it was easy to imagine the men lashed to the center tree, the rocks set about almost like an occult binding ring. There was something ugly about the granite, as if in the wrong light one could read off tortured faces in the knots and crevices. Even the lichen seemed to be averse to its surface. 

At the base of the tree was a single notch, almost weathered into the bark by now. Someone had started to chop the tree down. Something made them think better of it. 

“So this is it, huh?” Blondie surveyed the barren land behind the trees, squinting through the reflected snow. 

“I believe so.” 

Angel Eyes scuffed through the snow with his boot, digging down to a layer that in a few months, would be utterly solid. But sure enough, beneath the loosely packed layer of ice came a handful of grit. He draws himself up to standing, offering his hand to Blondie. 

“Hell,” Blondie drags a finger through the sand curiously, rubbing it together, “Now there's a sight I didn't think I'd ever get to see again.”

*

_ Day 3 of Yedhaa rising, Afternoon _

_ We got turned around for a moment but Angel wanted to get things down anyways, add to the map a little. Things look the same out here in all directions, but you can sort of tell which mountain is which.  _

_ Other than the snow, lack of kaktus, seems like a normal desert. _

_ Feels better than I thoght it would to be out here-- way better. Angel is in his element. He will probbaly get bored when we get to the graves and theres nothing out here, but still.  _

_ Nothing but stories of kids who died out here. Maybe the men too, who knows.  _

_ Strange I always thought I’d go out in a way liek that. Like in a shootout or someone got the better of me. Someone like Angel. I know I’m a good shot but we both lived on the edge. Still do, of a sort. Jordan was almost a skeleten when she cralled into Tweechik and now she's at least as good a hunter as Peter.  _

_ Sue says I’m a good teacher. She was. Still is. There’s something about the hunting that got in my bones pretty fast.  _

_ Wonder if he knew how different things woud be out here.  _

*

_ Day 3 of Yedhaa rising, Evening.  _

_ Made it to make camp, thogh got turned around a bunch. That map is as simple as it looks. I dunno about Angels navigasion either.  _

_ There really is nothing out here.  _

_ Except the houses, I guess. Little pine-built things, made out of spindly twigs. I wonder if they put new ones in. Strange graves. And the blankets over the ground, still here after a few seasons, all frayed out.  _

_ Other than that, nothing that odd.  _

_ Maybe the house is a good idea for a grave.  Leaving a house for the soul to live in isnt any stranger than a simbol of suffering and sin.  _

_ Thats somethign Angel would say. Maybe he is saying that in the story right now. I gotta say one thing about those, he sounds less like him, or maybe it’s the parts that he’s leaving out. I just saw them, you know.  _

_ Maybe that was the wrong thign to tell him but I dont think so. Didt seem mad just didnt say much, which is funny for him.  _

_ Well. Even thogh its been troble, I’m glad we’re here.  _

_ Well, I better start getting the snow up. Need something like a house for the living too.  _

*

\-- The Hunters and the Shaman -- 

“Non mortem timemus, sed cogitationem mortis.”

\-- Chapter 4. -- 

It was surprisingly easy to work up a sweat in the cold North. Blondie and Angel Eyes loaded the snow into a pile, scraping up the sand beneath after enough digging. When a considerable pile had accumulated, they turned their attention to finding wood. 

Trees were prominent on the rolling landscape, if sparse. Blondie shrugged his coat off to fell a small one, going to work on the base. Angel Eyes split the pieces to kindling. Before long they had a decent fire going, some of yesterday's hunt getting to frying over the flames. The fat from the meat was rich and fragrant, a far better meal than Angel Eyes had ever taken in the thankless stretch of the western desert. 

Once they had eaten and dug out the snow for an insulated shelter, they lay down furs both inside the shelter and by the fire. Angel Eyes wanted to survey the graves, keep watch a little longer for any sign of human life. But the journey had been barren, revealing nothing but layers of plains rolling up and down, as repetitive as the West had ever been between towns. 

The graves, though-- even those at Sad Hill, the maze-like cemetery that Angel Eyes had believed would be his last stand-- even that labyrinth seemed trite compared to the seven spirit houses couched in the low ground that they camped in. 

“Intricate,” Angel Eyes crouched down in the snow to the miniature log cabin marking one of the seven graves. He strained his eyes in the falling light at the twine lashing them together. Some kind of fur, perhaps. And rocks, with symbols carved in the base like eyes. When he picked up the house to check its weight, he heard Blondie draw sharp breath behind him.

“What?”   


“Dunno that you should touch that.”

He raised an eyebrow at Blondie, “You’ve robbed graves before. Or let them get robbed.”

“That was before.” 

“Extinctus amabitur idem,” he turned it over in his hands, not much heavier than a handful of bone. Fitting.

Blondie’s brow furrowed, searching for the translation that Angel Eyes had given to him offhand, perhaps a few times over the years. Death hastening love, or the taint of nostalgia shadowing greater crimes in life. 

“Never stopped hating that part,” Blondie threw another log to the fire without looking at him. 

Angel Eyes studied him intently,  “You never killed that man, no. Fortunate for us both.” 

That was far more than enough to admit to. He tossed the spirit house lightly between his hands, Blondie lunging forward. Angel Eyes laughed before thinking better of it, the sound dying in his throat at Blondie’s stricken glare.

“I have it,” he set the grave marker down. After all this time, he was still inclined to push things just that inch too far. A vice they shared, if an interesting one. 

“And you say I'm the one with the death wish,” Blondie's voice was at least half joking, but something about it struck a chord within Angel Eyes. All the questions about why they came. 

“That was before. Besides, I haven’t changed a bit. I like being in the world. Leaving my mark on it as long as I have the capacity to,” he tapped a finger to his notebook, “If there is someone-- something out there. I intend to know it and make it known.”

“Hate to disappoint you, but we’re probably just going to sit in this snow hole for a night and then head back. Not much of a trail out here.” 

Angel Eyes grinned, “No. But if there were bodies, then surely-- there's someone out there. But who knows? It could be within the Gwitchin themselves. People have all kinds of comfortingly macabre tales to escape mundane horrors.”

He let his gaze linger on the spirit house, on the shadow it cast along the disturbed snow. Blondie’s aversion surrounding the graves came as a surprise. But then again, if Sue had reason to be wary, perhaps this was the reason for his hesitation. Blondie was already reaching for a cigar, an old nervous habit. Angel Eyes dug out his pipe in turn. 

“Were you thinking the stories held some kind of truth?” he gestured to the house, trying not to let derision into his voice. 

“Don't believe in ghost stories. Heard enough of them,” he breathed out the smoke. This time, Angel Eyes let it lie. The fire needed another log in any case, darkness ever edging forward with the winter. Angel Eyes took up the pen for some time. Blondie's gaze settled on the notebook, now turned to a sharp contemplation. 

“You know, at first, I thought that was all you were. A ghost story. But Tuco said he'd met you.”

Angel Eyes worried the pipe with his lips, surprised they'd never spoken about this, “And you believed him?”

“No, no. But when I met you, I knew. That the stories were true. All of them.” 

“So I was as you imagined, then.” 

“You were worse,” Blondie smiled his crooked grin. 

“You flatter me,” Angel Eyes said it drily. It was made all the more flattering by the fact that it was true. Angel Eyes shifted with his notebook, making a show of disinterest. A gentle wind whistled over the icy desert, something almost warm in it. The echo of another desert’s wind. 

“Come here,” Blondie pulled the cigar from his lips, a challenge in his glance. Angel Eyes obeyed warily, meeting Blondie’s gaze with a clear objection to any further tenderness. 

“What?”

Blondie laughed at that, “Nothing. Just looking.”

And then Angel Eyes remembered all at once, god, that same first time by firelight that he had drawn Blondie in. Just for something to do, a fuck to pass the night. 

Things became different so fast. 

“You sonofabitch,” Angel Eyes murmured, and Blondie beat him it, grabbing his collar and drinking the old taste of desert from his lips. Angel Eyes took the upper hand, forcing Blondie's head upwards, feeling the pulse at his throat and dragging his teeth along the shell of his ear. 

Blondie retaliated by gripping his neck, forcing the breath from his throat and catching it with his lips and teeth. They kissed till the sense of time bent-- strange that suffocation could bring that freedom. Freedom he supposed, from the count of breath at every moment, closer to the grave. 

He gasped a breath out, knocking Blondie onto his back, crawling over his thighs. The fire cast all kinds of shadows into Blondie’s carved and stubbled face, scars from another desert mottled in the light. Some softened, others deepened with age. 

His fingers itched to strip Blondie bare, but the meager flicker of the fire would not be sufficient for the time they needed. Angel Eyes shifted off of Blondie reluctantly, reaching for the pile of logs. Blondie shook snow off his hand, dipping his now-freezing fingertips underneath Angel Eyes’ collar. Angel Eyes fought not to shiver, the climbing flames helping that. 

“Think the fire will last us?” 

“If you haven’t gotten any slower,” Angel Eyes quipped mockingly, prompting Blondie to work his jacket open skillfully from behind, exposing the scar down his chest to the late summer chill. He turned so that Blondie's fingers could carve down the length of it-- a mark they more than shared in creating. A story scrawled in flesh itself. 

Blondie’s teeth nipped at the scar, too gentle, not quite enough. Angel Eyes dug his teeth in to Blondie’s shoulder, savoring the taste of his sweat, the sound of his gasp. 

Fucking by firelight was a careful effort. The wind wasn't too high, some the furs laid out beneath them. Angel Eyes’ fingers made quick work of Blondie's jacket, his hand slipped in to grip Blondie's hardening cock. 

The secret was to use time of exposure sparingly, to draw out the play between pain and pleasure while covered before baring oneself only when it was unbearable not to. For most fucking, this was a matter of taste or interest, in this it was a matter of survival. 

The sear of cold, on the other hand, was its own pleasure. Blondie was quick to match Angel Eyes’ rhythm, despite his mouth’s attentions to the scar. Blondie knew well how a calloused drag of his skin and nails could give him the advantage. 

Angel Eyes bit his cheek against a gasp. Perhaps he wouldn't mind losing the advantage tonight. 

“Come on,” Blondie let out a slight gasp as Angel Eyes flicked his finger over the head of his cock. Clever, but Blondie knew he had him from the way his grip tightened. Angel Eyes relented, ceasing to struggle.

“Lick.”

Blondie grinned. So he remembered that too. 

Blondie had always been bold, learning how to use his mouth, but over the years he’d become used to it as a weapon of its own kind. After the shock of cold from the air, the heat of his mouth went straight to the core. Blondie dragged his teeth from the base of his cock all the way to the tip, digging his nails into the exposed flesh of his thigh. 

The sensation was already reaching a fever pitch when Blondie's fingers pressed hard into his ass. Angel Eyes could almost hear the echo of his own cry across the desert. Blondie worked him over hard with nail and tongue for a few minutes more before drawing up his head and giving Angel Eyes an enigmatic half-smile. 

“Thinking about shooting me in the head?” Angel Eyes managed through hard breaths. 

“I like seeing you right where I want you.”

“I won't say you haven't gotten good at that,” Angel Eyes reached for his cock in turn, delivering tempting strokes, opening up his livid cock to the firelight. 

“Come on,” Angel Eyes growled. Blondie was already reaching for the oil. 

Blondie pinned him down, exposing his legs to the icy air for only a moment before forcing his full length in, inch by inch. Angel Eyes drove up from the frozen ground beneath them deeper, faster. It couldn't last long. But god, it was good when it did. 

Angel Eyes could feel Blondie's release rush up all the way to his frantic heartbeat. But he didn't let up, sinking his teeth into Angel Eyes’ neck almost hard enough to draw blood. Angel Eyes followed him a moment later, hands digging into Blondie's cold muscle. 

He was too spent to shove Blondie off of him, but did slap him gently when he dragged his mouth over the exposed part of the scar one last time. 

“Thought you said you weren't getting slow,” his fingers found a new wrinkle on the tip of Blondie's forehead. Blondie groaned lightly and rolled off of him, rummaging in the bag for rags to clean off with. 

Angel Eyes pulled his clothes back over himself, the goosebumps just starting to rise up on his bare legs. Blondie was shivering despite being clothed, so Angel Eyes' tugged out a blanket from the snow shelter and threw it over him. 

Blondie nodded his thanks, fumbling in his pockets for a matchbook. A quirley did seem fitting. Angel Eyes watched the way the ash fell on the snow for a moment before getting out his own pipe. Blondie obligingly used his quirley to light the pipe. Blondie squinted out at the landscape.

“Well. If there is anything out there--” 

Angel Eyes coughed out a half-laugh on the smoke, “If there were anything, would have seen or heard it.” 

“Would you? I’ll have to fuck you harder next time.” 

“The day a fuck compromises my vigilance will be the day you shoot me in the head,” Angel Eyes tilted his head back, noting a few bright stars on the clear horizon.

“Wouldn't call the trip wasted,” Blondie shot him that same half-grin. Angel Eyes smiled like a hollow skull in the firelight back. 

“It will make at least one point of interest in the tale, that's for certain.” 

_ * _

 

_ Day of 4 Yedhaa Rising, Morning, almost no light.  _

_ I think Angel is writing about us fucking.  _

_ Cant be mad really. He writes that well too, and it is like him.  _

_ Hope he doesn't show that to Castellan.  _

 

*

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Eheu fugaces labuntur anni_ \- Alas, the fleeing years slip by. Yeah, they sure do.
> 
>  _drin gwiinzih_ \- Good day
> 
>  _Guk agawandie_ \- I will try. This is also me trying to translate, and then anglicize pronunciation of a language I do not speak, so, you know, 'I tried' as well XD. God knows it isn't worth the time or the work of a native speaker for something this obscure, non-influential, self-indulgent.
> 
>  _Non mortem timemus, sed cogitationem mortis._ \- We do not fear the grave, but the thought of it. 
> 
>  
> 
>  _mahsi' choo_ \- Thank you very much. 
> 
> And thank you, dear readers. I had a friend describe this as "razor blade candy floss" potentially? Well it's more fluff than I intended for them, but I suppose this is the "candy floss" part. Hope you're having fun so far, and that the end of this chapter made you laugh. Let me know in the comments! <3


	3. Those to die salute you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A very brief Latin translation to follow. Uh, here's where the 'horror' part of the fic starts to come in, as well as more of the 'blair witch crossover' and the 'me trying to be MZD' bullshit. 
> 
> Content warning for a brief bit of violence towards partner that I thought was *almost* questionable, but also sort of appropriate given the circumstances. And you know, freaky weird noises, what's on the tin.

\-- The Hunters and the Shaman --

                                                                                                                                                  “Graviora manent.”

 

\-- Chapter 5. --

“So. You said you heard something in the night?”

Angel Eyes shoved his boot through the packed ice of their shelter, regarding Blondie carefully. Blondie nodded once, never one for too many words in the morning. He lifted his head up to squint at the light on the snow covered horizon. Angel Eyes stepped closer.

“Like what?”

Blondie scratched his head, scuffing the heavy caribou-hide boots in the remains of the shelter. He glanced to the spirit houses and back, “Can't say it sounded like much. Wind. Laughter. Deep laughter. Maybe I imagined it?”

“Must have slept heavy,” Angel Eyes circled the camp for tracks, any sign of someone stalking. He’d used to sleep so light that a lizard crossing the sand could wake him.

That was a long time ago.

“Don't see anything here,” Angel Eyes said after a few minutes.

“Guess it was nothing,” Blondie shrugged uneasily, “But seeing as there's no one out there-- we should get back.”

“Yeah,” Angel Eyes shouldered his pack, squinting at the horizon. He unfolded the map, “Think if we go south, it should get us out the fastest.”

“You sure?”

“Course I am,” Angel Eyes snapped the compass shut, “You don't believe me, you can take the compass.”

“Yeah,” Blondie didn't even look contrite, which set Angel Eyes’ teeth on edge. Yesterday's trek to the graves had been meandering, yes, but that was no reason to worry. Just the same, he handed over the compass to Blondie, tracing the path on Sue’s map. Blondie nodded, his lips drawn thin.

“Wish there was more on this map.”

Angel Eyes glanced around them, spotting the cluster of trees that they had collected wood from. He tracked from the graveyard, scrawling a few marks in for those.

“We’ll fill it in, then.”

Angel Eyes made a point of pausing to mark down meaningful parts of the desert, which Blondie shook his head at, but indulged. The uniformity of the landscape seemed even more enveloping today. Not a lot of marks to make, the odd tree here and there, mismatched piles of rocks. He could turn behind and just make out the tips of the spirit houses for longer than he expected as they walked.

They certainly weren’t going the same way they had before. The landscape itself in this direction seemed in some ways easier to navigate, in that everything was visible up to the horizon-- but less so in that it seemed to go on indefinitely.

“You gonna write about Jordan?” Blondie broke the silence after a few miles of their footprints in the snow behind them.

Angel Eyes paused, adjusting his pack before continuing to the compass’ bearing, “About?”

“When she came to Tweechik-- you and Castellan seeing to her.”

“Seeing her,” Angel Eyes corrected, the distinction subtle, “And perhaps, after George's story is told.”

“Right, yeah.”

Blondie narrowed his eyes, no doubt remembering their bear-murderer rather than Jordan’s auspicious entry to Tweechik. It was curious that he thought of Jordan’s story first, but then again, it was more recent in memory.

A few years ago, just edging in towards the bone of winter, they’d had a visitor to Tweechik. Castellan had seen lean-starved men before, had even experienced symptoms of headaches and intense hunger during periods of eating little except wiry small game. Jordan had one foot in the grave, fingers almost stripped of flesh, and a mouth full of blood.

Blood she wasn’t sure was her own.

Angel Eyes wondered if Jordan had wandered a place like this-- long stretches of land with her doomed companion. He’d never asked what the man was to her. Other than survival. Castellan had recognized the signs as soon as they laid her to bed with a forced few mouthfuls of a hearty soup.

Angel Eyes had met a lot of different killers before, but surprisingly, never one inclined to literally consume the fruits of their labour. Obviously survival necessitated consuming the body, but whether she had developed a taste for the work was of interest.

“Reckon this is worth adding to the map?” Blondie’s question jarred Angel Eyes out of his thoughts. He nodded once, taking down the larger and shorter pair of trees just to the east of them.

“You thinking about George?”

“Jordan. She hunts well now, doesn’t she?”

“Yeah. She does,” the knowing look on Blondie’s face gave him no reproach. But Blondie would remember the choice that Angel Eyes offered to her. He turned back to trail.

It had been Castellan’s idea to offer the choice at all, insisting that the girl deserved that much. After all, she wasn’t much more than sixteen. Not that it changed anything -- as he’d told her by her bedside when she’d asked, he’d been a killer by younger than that.

That was when Castellan had taken him out of the room, demanded to know what he was doing. Of course, neither of their bedside manner was ideal, but she was smart. Smart enough to see curiosity edging into manipulation. Angel Eyes dealt in both.

He had seen in Jordan’s pinched lips and grey eyes the capacity for further violence. In many ways, her responses had been like Castellan. Curious. Detached. But under the layers of detachment there remained weakness in Castellan, something that kept her tense and drawn. The child she had been before she was made into a slave and a weapon. Controlled by fear. Fear that he’d seen in her even when she stared him down, made him swear to give Jordan that choice.

Jordan feared nothing. There was a lot one could do with that kind of power.

Angel Eyes surveyed the landscape behind them, marked by their tracks. There were few landmarks behind them, few ahead. But he felt confident that they would be seeing the familiar forests rise up in front of them. In time. Time enough for stories and memories.

Once the girl had been made well by Castellan’s tending, there remained the question of what she might do with that power. Sue and Blondie showed her to hunt, which she was a natural at. But when Angel Eyes did not come by Castellan’s to question her a few days in to this experiment, she took it upon herself to find him.

Angel Eyes reflected in that moment, it could be said that Jordan demanded the choice for herself. But certainly not consciously, no. And she’d asked to be freed from the choice, almost immediately after finding him.

She'd been quiet when she had entered the house without knocking, her eyes widening at the bones above them. That was George’s story, not hers. But it was no doubt a story that would captivate her. Angel Eyes had looked up from his wood-carving like he was expecting her. But it had been a pleasant surprise.

“Where can I go, now?” was all she'd asked.

What a question.

“You should ask yourself that.”

He'd given her more than that, by the end of their conversation. There were really two choices that mattered-- to stay in Tweechik, hone her hunting to its peak, and know nothing more. Only the four of them would know her for her deeds, the rest of the rumors surrounding her would fade.

The second choice was to leave come summer and find out where the limits of her abilities truly lay. He’d seen in some moments that same hunger which drove him to become the most feared hitman in the West.

There was no reason why a fortune like that couldn't be hers.

“Alone?” was the other thing she had asked. Now that was one question Angel Eyes had always considered the answer to obvious. Certainly none of them were leaving Tweechik.

Angel Eyes was reasonably sure if he'd met Blondie at Jordan's age, they wouldn't be where they were today. But at that age he hadn't expected to be anywhere like this at all, at any point in time.

His fingers tracked absently to the scar under his collar, skipping over a bump that usually caught his calloused thumb. The skin seemed to have smoothed out somehow, perhaps with the cold.

In any case, Jordan had for now chosen to make scars of her own staying in Tweechik, and Angel Eyes was confident he'd made it clear any killers of that kind would quickly be dispatched. There certainly were more than enough latent killers already.

Kept things interesting. And she might yet decide to take to the road someday. It had only been three years now.

“Let's stop a moment, get something to eat,” Blondie's words cast off the last of Angel Eyes’ wandering thoughts. He nodded, noting the mismatched pile of rocks Blondie was tracking for. Blondie dug out the pemmican while he went for his notebook.

“So. How's the story?”

“I'm adding details, to your suggestion. Whether it makes a better story remains to be seen.”

“Even this conversation?”

“Word for word,” Angel Eyes brushed the frost off the rock, brandishing his pen to demonstrate how serious he was. Blondie smirked, taking a swig of the canteen of water and settling down.

“Don't remember this pine when we came up. This is a different route?”

“Of course,” Angel Eyes didn’t look up from his writing. Blondie sat down hard next to him, glancing over his shoulder.

“Don’t. You’ll see it later.”

“Yeah, when we’re back,” Blondie shifted away, extracting his own notebook from his pack, “So. Do you know where we are?”

Angel Eyes took out the map, tracking their path from the last markers and waypoints. He added a trio of circles among the others he’d added.

“Here. We’re here.”

*

_Day of 4 Yedhaa Rising, Afternoon._

 

_Walking more._

_Maybe itd be interesiting if there was something to tell in this. Dunno that I want something to happen, but if it makes a good story. Itd make this desert thing worth while._

_Angel is rihgt, George does make a good story. There’s a lot of us in that._

_Maybe that’s why he’s waiting on writing it. Is Jordan the same?_

_Seeing him tak to her made me understand what happened with George. He knew from the minute she came into town that she’d had some kinda blood on her hands. Same way he knew with Castellan. Maybe same way he knew with me. Kind of like that._

_He likes killers. Of course. Collecting them. But Jordan, she ended up more like me._

_I think about how she said ‘thank you’ to him sometimes, when she came to ours that one evening. Very quiet. He didnt say much to that._

_I never said anything like that to him, but. I havent really thanked a lot of people, other than maybe Sue._

_Wouldnt know where to start._

_I’m glad Jordan is with us thogh. She’s a hell of a hunter._

*

_Day of 4 Yedhaa Rising, Evening_

_Can't believe we're camping again. Damnit. And it’s late too._

_Shouldnt have let Angel talk me into this when I saw how bad the map was. This plase is a lot bigger than it looks, the Gwitchin didnt lie._

_At least it's a clear nigt. Going to see what he wrote now._

_This is some kind of story. Getting tired of it._

*

\-- The Hunters and the Shaman --

 

                                                                                                                                                “Morituri te salutant.”

 

\-- Chapter 6. --

“You hear that?”

Blondie's voice cut through a darkness so absolute it must have been close to midnight. Night hours were thin at this time of year, but they were creeping up by the day.

Angel Eyes strained his ears, “What?”

It was death-silent-- then a sudden gust of wind. The whisper of snow-- or was that a sandstorm? It was too familiar to something Angel Eyes had slept with many years before. Then he froze, the old instincts pricking up. In the dying wind-whispers; almost the echo of footsteps. Perhaps.

“Footsteps?”

“No, no I thought. Thought it was voices.”

Blondie was almost curled in the corner of the snow hole, made uncharacteristically small despite his bulk. Angel Eyes couldn’t make out his form. An owl’s call cut through the silence, Blondie flinched headlong into Angel Eyes’ ribcage. This wasn’t like him.

“The hell?”

“Sorry-- shit. ”

Angel Eyes slapped him lightly on the side of his neck, missing his face. He hesitated when he felt the jackrabbit rhythm of Blondie’s pulse, surprise ripping through him. Blondie was as terrified as a hunted man about to get his throat cut. That _really_ wasn’t like him. Angel Eyes had seen him stare down death with the carelessness of one already marked for the grave.

Perhaps it was a sign of some greater attachment to life that he was afraid. That was something to be reassured by. Angel Eyes shifted his hand tentatively, equally torn between confusion and slapping Blondie again, harder.

“Never seen you afraid of something that wasn’t yourself before.”

“Yeah,” Blondie didn’t deny it, didn’t even snap back. Just swallowed the fear all the way down his neck, “I dunno what’s out there.”

“Footsteps, he’s got feet, so we’ll shoot them off. Voices, he’s got a throat to cut. Come on. We’ll be out of here by morning,” Angel Eyes strained his ears again, but this time, there was nothing but the gentle whistle of wind. One would wonder if they were both letting the stories get to them. Blondie shifted his arms to a vice grip around Angel Eyes’ waist, which Angel Eyes instinctively considered breaking bone to get out of.

“Don’t go out there.”

“I damn well can’t while you’ve got ahold of me like this, idiot.”

“Oh--” Blondie loosened his arms, but before he could retreat to the corner of the shelter, Angel Eyes tugged his arm, hard enough to make him grunt in pain.

“Not going anywhere. There ain’t shit to see out there anyhow, and anything that comes with a pair of eyes we’ll hear and see. And shoot it. If it’s just game, all the better,” Angel Eyes arranged his arms around Blondie, sharply aware that the only other time he’d cradled another man’s head like this he’d snapped the man’s neck. From the way Blondie’s body was responding he was exhibiting the same kind of terror. Blondie took another few heavy breaths.

“Right, yeah. Right. Sorry. Being an idiot,” he nodded once, heartbeat starting to slow a bit.

“You can see there's nothing out there.”

“It’ll be light soon,” Blondie said it almost to himself. He wasn’t wrong. It was only imagination that made the nights seem longer out ~~here~~ there.

*

_God above, that was a strange night. Dont know what came over me. I thougt I heard-- well, I thougt it was Sue, then it sounded like my mother._

_This place--_

_I dont want to spend another night here. That map isnt doing shit for us, sooner use the stars. They never failed us before._

_It is grey thogh._

*

~~\-- The Hunters and the Shaman --~~

 

                                                                                                                                                                    ~~“Abyssus abyssum~~

 

~~\-- Chapter 7. --~~

 

The first thing the morning brought was silence. Not even a whisper of wind across the snow-coated plains. A snowfall the evening before had covered their tracks, leaving a layer of white the breadth of a hand at the entrance to their shelter. Angel Eyes pushed his glove through it, surveying the landscape they had yet to cross.

He took out the map as Blondie dragged himself out to brush off the fire pit. They seemed close to the edge of the space as Sue had defined it-- somehow. How much further could it possibly be?

“Angel-- God above.”

“What?” Angel Eyes couldn't keep himself from snapping. He followed Blondie's gaze to just behind their snow shelter, drawing a sharp breath.

There lay two spirit houses, resting on top of the fallen snow. There were no footprints to or from the would-be graves, but neither was there any snow covering the twig-knotted roofs. As if they had simply materialized on to the blank canvas of white.

Angel Eyes dragged his eyes along the unmarked snow but found it to be impossibly perfect.

“Let me see that map,” Blondie was clumsy as he struggled through the fallen snow.

Angel Eyes, still staring at the pristine houses, didn’t say anything. Blondie grabbed at his hand, tearing the map in two parts.

“Blondie, what the hell--”

Blondie used his pencil to scrawl a cross right where they should have been in the map, “There, we’re right here, right? Right where we’re supposed to die?”

“Shut up, I need time to think,” Angel Eyes reached for the map, to try and patch it back together. Blondie snatched it away, “Blondie.”

“I don't want to use that damn thing anymore.”

Something dark crawled up with tiredness from the night before, and before he could think, Angel Eyes landed a punch on Blondie’s downcast jaw. Before he could register the pain on his fist, Blondie recovered with a blow to his left shoulder, tearing open his jacket. He shoved Blondie hard, to put some distance between them, then the next moment they both had their guns drawn, furious and breathing hard.

“Just try it,” he snarled. Blondie might have been a lot of things to him, but he wasn't about to take that kind of shit right now.

Blondie squinted, staring intently at Angel Eyes’ face with drawn fury. His eyes shifted to confusion, lowering his Navy all at once. Angel Eyes cocked his Remington, not lowering it just yet. The remainder of the map was still clutched in Blondie's fist.

Blondie approached slowly, close enough that Angel Eyes had to lower his weapon. The threat was empty and they both knew it. Angel Eyes let him place a hand on his shoulder, unsure whether this was some crude attempt at manipulation. But the hard lines of Blondie's face were knotted into something too disquieted to ignore. He ran his finger down to the scar and recoils, drawing sharp breath.

“God above. What the hell is this place.”

“What,” Angel Eyes said flatly, resisting the unpleasant feeling that they had sparred against each other when the real danger was something that couldn't be fought or seen.

“The scar-- Angel, it’s--”

The white edge of the top of the scar had unmistakably retreated, no more than a half an inch. But still a change to a mark more than a decade old.

~~Angel Eyes felt the~~

“Let’s get out of here. Now.”

“Yeah.”

“You have the compass, right? We’ll keep going south. It’s not that big. We should be getting close to the edge of it by now.”

“Yeah.”

Angel Eyes belatedly noticed the bruise starting to raise on Blondie's cheek. In spite of Blondie's stupidity, he frowned at himself. This shouldn't have seemed necessary.

“You. Are you alright?”

“The map-- shit, I--” Blondie uncrumpled his fist to reveal the parchment, smeared and almost unreadable.

“We’ll use the compass. Come on.”

And again, they began through the snow. Now that it was fresh, the ground gave way more easily under their boots, the layers blowing up in the mild wind. The air had dried up overnight with the snow, chafing against their bare cheeks and parching their lips.

The land did not yield.

After many miles of silent trudging, a promising patch of trees rose out above the rolling hills. Angel Eyes quickened his pace, Blondie beside him. Neither of them bothered to hide their eagerness. But as they came closer, the trees were revealed to be no more than a few.

They weren't alone.

“God above-- are those men?”

“No-- not men.”

Surrounding the threadbare pines on the south side, pointing in every which direction were stone figures. Some of them were barely taller than the breadth of a hand. Others towered above even Blondie's head, the boulders that built them a near impossible size.

“God above--”

Blondie's curse was almost a whisper amidst the winter wind. Angel Eyes found himself enraptured by their strange form, the scale and number of them too much to take in. Part of him wished he was adept at charcoal, like Castellan, something to better record their watchful presence.

Whether the doing of a shaman or a madman, Angel Eyes was compelled to a strange admiration. The figures evoked something like memories, each echoing someone Angel Eyes had seen, known, even killed. He was not sure whether it was his imagination or not.

“Cineri gloria sera venit,” Angel Eyes had to fight to keep the irony in his voice.

“This is. This is -- God.” Blondie lingered under the lengthening shadow of a figure pointing due north.

“It's what we came to see, isn't it?” he licked his now cracked lips, tasting rust. Blondie didn't answer.

Angel Eyes ~~can't~~ couldn’t place why he asked it as a question.

*

_I know we had to stop but why the hell did it have to be here_

_Theres a sircle of three small Inuks, that big one  over them. looks just like the one at sad hill I dont know why or how or_

_God_

_I know why but hell why does he always have to push things like this. Why is he still writing_

_Why the hell am I?_

*

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     “Facilis descensus averno.”

Blondie slept with one hand pinned over the scar. As if the contact could somehow slow the effects of the cursed desert. Angel Eyes feigned sleep while listening to Blondie's shallow breaths. Neither of them was letting their guard down.

The nights in the desert were getting longer, both to the mind and to the eyes. And yet they still could not find its edge.

Slowly, sounds were creeping in with the whisper of the wind. Blondie tightened his grip. Neither of them were prone to inaction, and yet -- what was out there still sounded like it could have been the imagination.

“You hear that?” it was the strangest almost-footstep in the snow-- the strange part was that it did not sound like snow at all.

“Hear what?” Blondie lifted his head up, nails digging slightly into Angel Eyes’ chest.

It was a sound so familiar and out of place Angel wondered if it was a hallucination. A thump and the unmistakable drag of flesh, fabric on wood. Dobbs, his old informant, shifting across a saloon towards him. Angel Eyes scrabbled upwards, the sound all around them.

Blondie was right behind, “Oh god-- what the _hell_. That's not possible-- it's snow out there and he's dead, he--”

For a split second Angel Eyes held the thought that Blondie had never even met Dobbs, and that neither of them could say whether he was alive or dead -- then another sound.

A heavy thump directly above them, the loose snow spilling from the shelter’s ceiling to rain bursts of cold on their faces and both of them scramble out in unison, weapons drawn. In the bare light of the fading midnight sun they could make out no shape atop their shelter, no mark on the landscape save for their own. Angel Eyes could hear voices, and they came from all around them. Voices he knew, and only he should know and remember.

The thin scream of a woman just before taking a bullet straight through the jaw and out of an eye socket. The muffled cry though a pillow of the man who knew he’d done a deal with the devil. The last rasp of a sheriff as his throat opened up onto the desert grit.

Most of them were triumphs, hardly to be feared. But this wasn’t the way he wanted to remember them.

He was dimly aware of Blondie beside him as he squinted for the source of it. There had to be-- some sort of figure, some source of the visions. The Shaman --

Something moving beside him, too fast for him to reach for his Remington, he started to a run towards it. He thought he heard Blondie’s voice amidst the cacaphony of sound, but there were too many directions too look in, all of them pitch and directionless. He stopped short, trying to make out the husk of their camp in the curtain of the night.

The noises faded, but he strained his ears for a soft set of regular footsteps underneath. All the years of holding his ground, hand gripping the cold metal of the gun like it might save him but in that moment all his muscles were screaming to _run_.

He was knocked flat to the snow by a heavy weight, familiar, _all of it_ was familiar and none of it should have been, scratching and reaching for his weapon --

“Angel. Angel relax,” Blondie hissed above him, heart pounding just as hard as the night before.

“Damnit. Damnit,” Angel Eyes breathed heavily, his throat choked with unfamiliar adrenaline. He had thought such reactions were long since out of his reach. Blondie was a bracing and solid weight above him, the cold from the snow just starting to seep through the thick jacket to his back.

He was torn, then, between throwing the unnecessary weight off of him and digging his fingers deeper into Blondie’s back. The noises had all but whispered off. There was nothing but silence across the arid snow. Then, the hoot of an owl that made both of them flinch closer. Time seemed to stretch and bend, but still neither of them moved. Nothing on the landscape moved.

Too soon, not soon enough -- the morning light on the horizon.

*

_I dont know where we are but they have us--_

_Its morning. Thats safe but for how long? Another day of walking to nowhere?_

_The things I heard last night-- shit, it was …----------_

_I dont know_

_Im not afrad like I was before. If Angel is afrad -- we have to keep our heads up. Keep going._

_we  always made it before_

~~_before now we_ ~~

_Angel wont let me read what he wrote yesterday._

_Shit, I -- I am afrad but thats not what matters._ ~~_what does any of it_ ~~

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Latin stuff:
> 
>  _Graviora manent_ \- Greater dangers await
> 
>  _Morituri te salutant._ \- Those to die salute you 
> 
> _Cineri gloria sera venit_ \- Glory comes too late to the dead. 
> 
> _Facilis descensus averno_ \- The descent to hell is easy. You might remember this as a motif in several other fics. The fact that this line is chosen here is significant.
> 
> Anyways you can comb over this other nonsense for significance too, or let me know of it in the comments <3 <3 Hope you're enjoying!


	4. Tabula rasa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo the last chapter? Well other than an epilogue I decided this needed as well. The epistolary shit kicks into overdrive here so hopefully it's clear enough to read between the lines. 
> 
> No real warnings other than hallucinations and the Archive Warning you hopefully read before getting into this. This is far too tragic and beautiful for them to deserve but here we are. 
> 
> Translations to follow.

 

_Not here_

 

_Not again_

_Its the same its the same its not real I_

_I cant_

*

 

\-- Chapter 9 --

They passed the lone, tall statue next to a scraggly pine just after dawn.

Light meant that the landscape returned to its inscrutable silence, and with it, an uneasy peace. Or the illusion of it. They had scrapped camp fast, making short work of their snow-shelter. In the shifting of the furs and the slight mess of the firepit it seemed as if some presence had been there-- something to go along with the echoes and ghosts that had come in the night.

With the daylight, however, came nothing but the same death march across the landscape. By now both of them were becoming aware that they were running low on the additional supplies that Sue had insisted they pack.

“Should keep a sharp eye out for game,” was all Blondie said when they ate a few mouthfuls of something like lunch.

“We’ll definitely be able to see it,” was all Angel Eyes said, searching the horizon for any sign of something different.

Blondie said nothing to that.  

They continued south, nothing but a few trees rising in front of them, falling behind them. Blondie started humming something, strange and tuneless. It seemed to blend with the wind itself.

It must have been hours before Blondie spotted it in the distance.

“Tree and another Inuk.”

“Yup.”

Blondie checked the compass once, their bearing still straight on. Then he quickened his pace through the snow, almost stumbling too fast in its depth.

“It’s the same,” Blondie mumbled as Angel Eyes approached.

“What do you mean -- no--” Angel Eyes turned his eyes slowly upward.

The stone watchmen was perfectly identical to the previous in every chip and angle of its structure. Not only that, the tree next to it was in the same position, the same missed patches of greenery. The same raw exposure of sap, just on the eastern side, frozen in mid-weep.

“God above, God above,” Blondie pressed his fingers into his eyes, breathing hard. Angel Eyes was already throwing down his pack, pulling out his notebook with certain hands. Blondie took out his notebook mechanically as well. If nothing else, this would be known, this madness. No this was far beyond misdirection, una salus victis nullam sperare salutem.

After some time recording, Blondie had retreated into a crouch on the ground, staring at the compass and back again at the stone watcher.

“Blondie.” Angel Eyes forced the words out. No response.

Una salus victis nullam sperare salutem. And it had really come to this, but yet still nothing yielded in the landscape. No threat emerged, no shaman made his powers seen and known for them to tremble before. Nothing but

“Why the hell do you keep writing? Damnit, Angel, we’re losing daylight.”

Angel Eyes froze

“What the hell else am I gonna do?”

What the hell else am I going to do. God.

*

_Shit. I sholdnt have pushed the way I did, not with things like this. What the hell is the point?_

_Making camp and we cant look at each other even, theres nothig to say or do_

_No guns to pull on anyone but each other. Nigt is coming up fast. We still have food._

_Thats hope rigt? Theres me hoping. Hoping we might go back to Sue and Castellan and lagh about all this. Hoping I might hunt again with Jordan, quiet as she is. Hoping to end up back at that bone cabin, sleep and have Angel’s coffee even if it’s godawful like it sometimes is. Hoping Angel and I might fuck again, under all those bones, scar or no, god, what if its gone tonight?_

_What if we’re gone?_

*

Blondie was still writing, just the same as Angel Eyes. Back to the wall of another godforsaken snow-hole, another night in the endless hell of the icy desert. Food was getting scarce, their packs lighter in a way that was unsettling rather than unburdening. They hadn't seen much game since they passed the Inuk for the second time.

The light was getting low, their small fire casting shadows along their lined faces. 

“Listen, Angel. Sorry for giving you shit earlier, I--”

“Doesn't matter,” in the truest sense, he meant it. What difference were a few careless words when the landscape itself was it's own godforsaken prison? Perhaps they had died in the night and this was some form of hell.

Angel Eyes never believed in hell. If he did having Blondie there with him would seem like too much of a grace.  

“Say something smart in Latin. Something about how it's all dust.”

“I don't know what there is to say.”

Blondie coughed, almost a helpless yelp. Angel Eyes shook his head.

“Smart enough to know that talking won't save you,” Blondie mumbled, and Angel Eyes laughed in a way that sounded strange even to himself.

“Should we know that?” After a moment of shivering the question settled in his chest. They could start a fire, the light starting to fall, but it wouldn’t keep the voices and screams away at night. God. He had never slept much, but he underestimated what it was like to function on less sleep than one needed.

Blondie made a helpless gesture, then closed his own notebook beside him. He shifted in his seat, then moved across the snow to sit behind Angel Eyes. The hide just barely had room for the both of them. Blondie was warm.

“Bis interimitur qui suis armis perit.”

Blondie just sighed, folding his arms open, reaching for the scar. His work-roughened hands didn’t skip over the surface quite the way they should. They both knew it was fading out, would be gone by morning.

It really was dust and shadow, wasn’t it? After all was done?

 

.

.

.

_So you're still wrigting, huh._

If we get out of this I don't want to forget it. Any of it.  

_I've got so many things about this I want to forget._

_Maybe not this -- right now-- thogh._

_Hey, is now the time?_

I don't know what it's time for anymore.

_Stay here. You can read my notebook if you want._

Where else is there to go?

 _I ~~think~~ _ _I don’t know._

_*_

_I said I was going to so I guess I will._

_Angel isnt wrigting. I dont know if it's me or last nigt but he just shook his head. Said I should._

_Last nigt the voices came differently this time. It was memories again -- things Id heard before. I figured Angel heard things differently the night before too. But that was blood on my hands, old gruges and people I never shold have been running with._

_This wasnt things I wanted to forget._

_We went out to look into the pitch dark-- couldnt get a match, hands shaking too hard. Nothing to see. But the sounds. Hell._

_I heard my mothers voice and I thought Id  forgotten it. Forgot that she used to ask if I was going to run away before dinner. Funny thing to forget. Funny thing to remember._

_Heard Sue calling in the hunt, I even heard the wind that day, bad storm but we got out of it and she thanked me for it after. Castellan too, for bringing Sue home. Castellan explaining how that gauge worked to Angel -- and Angel. God so many from him._

_Telling me he could read latin. Telling me to eat the goddamn soup. His voice ragged and recked, ‘I don't know how you knew I was afraid.’_

_All this and he was rigt beside me -- I knew it wasnt him._

_I dont know what he heard but he couldnt take it. Kept curling up and trying to cover his ears, covering my mouth -- I mean. I guess if I was hearing him that means he was hearing me._

_Havent seen him shake like that since before we got to Tweechik, or maybe that one time when he and Castellan went out to the woods. But I dont think thats what this was about._

_Whatever is out there-- I know it wants us dead, but I dont know it wants to hurt us. I dont know._

_I dont know what it means that Im not as afraid as I was._

_*_

_I dont think either of us have our heart in walking anymore._

_*_

Candle. Can't believe there's still a candle left.

It’s too late to learn this, I can’t-- it’s too late.

.

.

It’s almost morning, describe the evening, just put it down --

.

.

.

Everything about the desert defied this moment, when the light faded out over the fresh snowfall it was soft, gentle. The colors richly laden on the tracks from the day's journey. Blondie already exhausted from digging out another shelter, asleep and somehow at peace with the light draining from the sky.

.

.

.

That’s how it was meant to be described, and oh god. I still can’t see anything in the landscape, still can hear everything. Voice out there sounds like Castellan, sounds like Sue and I swear they wouldn’t be fool enough to follow us out there but everything in me knows they’re saying things I heard them say before and shouldn’t hear again.

To leave the eyes open is terrifying, to close them equally so.

The skin of the chest-- my skin is smooth as the endless hills of snow.

Tabula rasa.

After all I was so afraid of that, and I didn’t know.

The stories don't mean shit, it's the moments, grey moment slipping through fingers like sand-- god.

Blondie was so ready to die for this-- just walk right into danger because I asked. Of all the things I owe him, I don’t know if I can stomach another apology.

He could have endured a quiet, wordless death in the grave of our habits.

I’d kill for that now-- or I wouldn’t.

The last fifteen years. That’s it, isn’t it?

Dies with us both.

I wish I had told those stories but I don't know that I could have.

I am sorry. I wanted to.

*

_We arent going to walk today. No. We keep watch, keep warm, make a real fire. We have enough food for today, no more than that._

_Angel wants to read my notebook again. Migt read his. Maybe we will talk, about memories. Hope so._

_I hope it comes soon._

*

\-- The Hunters and the Shaman --

 

                                    “Mors ultima linea rerum est.”

 

\-- Chapter 10 --

The night watch is silent for the better part of the second night.

It’s approaching midnight, now dark for hours before, when Angel Eyes sees the light just beyond the horizon. A soft, unearthly glow, almost as if the sand itself is awakening beneath the snow. Then a few steps forward, and a structure comes into view. A dome made of blocks of ice, with a light within.

Angel Eyes shivers. But still, he knows what must be done. Omnia mors aequat. He almost laughs, what a hell of a fate. On paper, truly fitting.

For a split second, he considers throwing the entire book into the smoking ashes of the fire.

That wouldn’t change anything either.

He burrows in to the snow shelter, his shadow momentarily throwing off the light of the torch. Blondie wakes without a touch, sleeping lightly. Angel Eyes reaches for his shoulder anyways.

“Look outside.”

Blondie blinks away what little sleep he had and crawls up to where the flame dances. Angel Eyes can almost see the way the sheen casts grey over his skin. Or perhaps that’s just the realization.

Blondie purses his lips, firelight in the hollows of his face and on his overgrown stubble as he returns to Angel’s side, “We gonna go out there?”

“Think we have to.”

“Yeah. Just. Give it a minute,” Blondie swallows hard, and Angel Eyes reaches forward to grip his arm. Blondie tugs him forward, folding arms around his chest just as the night before. Angel Eyes doesn’t try to resist, leans deeper into the embrace.

“Did you read it?” Angel Eyes gestures with the notebook, fearing, and yet knowing the answer.

“Yeah,” Blondie reaches icy fingers under his collar, almost unconsciously folding open his coat, unbuttoning his shirt. His fingers carve out where the scar has all but vanished, so lightly Angel Eyes almost can’t stand it. He catches Blondie’s fingers at the edge of his smoothed flesh, gripping them tightly. 

“Do you remember it?”

“Stupid question. I could never forget it.”

"I meant-- never mind."

"I remember that too."

We had so much.

“Still writing?”

“I want someone to know it happened.”

_Isn't it enough that we both know?_

_._

_._

_._

Yes.

*

 **_SURGEON'S LOG_ ** **_._ **

**_\-----------------_ **

**_August 18, 1881_ **

**_No patients._ **

**_A bundle was left on the edge of town, found by Sue._ **

**_In it was two notebooks, written by Blondie and Angel Eyes, documenting an account of their time in the tundra desert._ **

**_There was also a wrapped fragment of human remains, the distal of the right middle finger. Analysis still in progress, but it is my personal and professional opinion that the finger belonged to Angel Eyes, impossible that may be._ **

**_At this point, based on the testimonials of their notebooks, I believe the logical conclusion is that they have both died in the desert._ **

**_May they rest at peace._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Una salus victis nullam sperare salutem_ \-- The one safety for the vanquished is to abandon all hope of safety. 
> 
> _Bis interimitur qui suis armis perit_ \-- he is doubly destroyed who perishes by his own arms. 
> 
> _Tabula rasa_ \-- A blank slate. 
> 
> _Mors ultima linea rerum est._ \-- death is everything's final limit. 
> 
> _Omnia mors aequat_ \-- death makes all things equal.  
>  *  
> In case anyone is close reading this with the northfic, the slippage between what Angel says and what Blondie remembers him saying is intentional. 
> 
> Almost done. Hope you're having feelings <3 thanks for sticking with me and please let me know how you are liking it!


	5. Epilogue: The Hunters of the West

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you'd forgotten from the start, the bold text is Sue's writing. I bet this is one of the only fics you've read that ends with like.....a summary of the fic you just read. 
> 
> Translations to follow.

**\-- The Hunters of the West --**

 

**In the Naa’in town of Tweechik, where many strange outcasts gathered, there lived two men of the West, a hunter and a killer. There are many stories of Tweechik about them, this is their last.**

**At the end of their fifteenth summer, the Gwitchin came to tell of the Shaman of Too tlan trih, the grey desert. The Shaman had become a threat to the tribe-- and to Tweechik.**

**The killer was proud and pledged to kill the Shaman. He said to the hunter: “We will seek him out in the desert, as we have done many times in the West.”**

**The hunter was a protector of the village and knew the Shaman should be dealt with-- but more, he was the companion and lover of the killer. He said “I will go with you. I would not see you put in harm's way alone.”**

**The two set out armed with small and large weapons alike. They walked across many miles to the center of the desert where the sacred graves of the children lay, and waited for the Shaman. But there was no sign of any person.**

**“We should turn back,” the hunter said, and the killer reluctantly agreed, sorry to return with no spoils of their journey.**

**As they travelled back to Tweechik, the landscape betrayed them. Under the sway of the Shaman, it stretched its length such that the desert expanded for miles without end.**

**At the end of the second day, the killer said, “Surely we will reach the end early tomorrow”**

**By the following morning their camp was visited by two grave homes, a sure sign that they were marked by the Shaman. Their skin and senses were touched by his magic, erasing old scars. They did not have much time.**

**The hunter well knew the map was sparse and with no markers. They soon resorted to compass, heading in a uniform direction. By the third night the Shaman’s magic took hold, and they heard voices of their past coming back. The killer cowered and gnashed his teeth as the old ghosts chased him, and the hunter shook with fear, as he too, had taken many lives.**

**The night ended with still no sign of the Shaman. The next day when they walked through the landscape, it formed a loop such that they could only return to the path the cursed Inuks pointed in.**

**That night the ghosts that came were not the tortured damned, but voices of people the hunter was closest too, that the killer had learned how to call friend.**

**“A blessing before death,” the hunter echoed to the killer. The killer yielded to death, after many long years of wielding it himself. The hunter followed the killer as he had for many years. The desert came to peace.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Naa’in-- outcast
> 
> Too tlan trih -- midnight roots, but here simply gives a Gwitchin name to the desert. 
> 
> *
> 
> I grew up reading a white man's retelling of Haida stories that I dearly loved. Though now I can see patterns and Westernizations in the way the stories were written, I still have a soft spot in my heart for them. This past year I had a chance to hear some real indigenous voices tell their stories as they were meant to be told. That was very special and I felt lucky to hear that. 
> 
> Sue's story is meant to be told orally, and I studied a few Dene legends to try and get a feel for the style. In any case I hope it feels like an apt tribute. In character for her, anyways. 
> 
> Thanks for reading this crazy misadventure <3 and as always feedback and thoughts are very very welcome. I write this primarily for me but if anyone is reading -- just know there's only a few people who come by to read this and it makes me very happy to know what they thought.


End file.
